Arming school staff could prevent tragedy

February 21, 2018

Jody Langford

OPINION by JODY LANGFORD

Predictably, after every mass shooting, most recently the tragedy in Florida, the same anti-gun talking heads spew the same talking points. They call for “reasonable” gun laws and blame the NRA and the “gun culture” for the shooting.

I rarely, if ever, hear these talking heads suggest any new law that would actually work to prevent tragedies such as this. There are over 300 million guns in private hands in the United States. If a law was passed banning all guns and requiring all guns to be turned in, how many of these would stay in private hands? My reasonable estimate would be upwards of 100 million.

Criminals for sure would not turn them in and neither would unbalanced creeps such as these school shooters.

Law-abiding citizens would hide theirs, not wanting to give up their Second Amendment rights or the ability to protect themselves and their families. So a complete gun ban and confiscation scheme would only serve to make innocents easier targets.

Prior to 1934, you could walk into a hardware store and buy a machine gun off the shelf and walk out with it. Prior to 1968, you could do the same with all guns other than machine guns. As recently as the late 70’s and early 80’s, there were trucks in the high school parking lots with guns in the racks. Were there all these mass shootings back then? I don’t remember any.

The problem is not the gun, it is society. God, morality, and basic human decency and normalcy are removed from our schools and from every facet of our society, then people wonder where God is when these shootings happen.

The solution, albeit a band-aid, is to arm school personnel. On a volunteer basis, any school teacher, administrator, custodian…any staff member that can pass a background check and undergo basic training in firearms safety…should be allowed to carry concealed in the school. The anti-gunners don’t like this idea because they spew the erroneous idea that the mere existence of the gun will lead to an increase in gun violence. Or that there is a higher probability for innocents to get hurt. Or any other number of baseless claims.

There are two common threads to all of these mass shootings: The bad guy was the only one with a gun, or it took a good guy with a gun to stop the carnage.

Jody Langford is a retired law enforcement officer living in the North County.

25 Comments

I left out the high school the author of this story and myself attended ,, In wood shop we could order a crossbow kit and shape the stock build the arrows in class and receive credit for doing a project nobody got by those crossbows. Time period was the early 80s mid 80s . A ton of drugs and alcohol was done 7 days a week . Maybe these kids today cant handle there drugs and booze like we used to ,,, Or the internet and internet based games are to be blamed .Relating to there peers thru an electronic device has made them anti social so they rebel with guns .Cause in the games you just get another life just a thought .

Teachers and coaches who are willing to be trained and armed would serve two purposes. A shooter who doesn’t know who may be armed may be deterred from even attempting the crime. When an incident does happen and armed, trained teacher can respond faster than the police and may limit the numbers of unfortunate deaths. One cop on each campus (which would require police departments to more than triple their forces) would not be as effective as several armed staff on each campus. Even a 20 foot wall around the school will not work. If a nut wanted to mow down his classmates, he could just do it as they line up to enter the campus.

Good article jody yep our high school that we. both attended had trucks with gun racks in almost all of them and we didn’t have any school shootings .There was a lot drug use and a lot of drunk parties but none us were ever threatened or shot by all those guns in fellow students cars and trucks.Fellow classmates also wore buck knifes on there belts .I was a neighbor of jody growing up he’s a good dude !!!

Now we’re finding out that a trained LEO was stationed at the school and he did nothing, not even entering the school or ever firing a shot, letting this idiot shoot unabated and unchallenged! And you think an armed teacher would have done any better? Yea, and you probably believe “hardened” schools are a solution too!

Guns ARE the problem, specifically semi-automatic assault style long guns with their extended capacity magazines, and their capability to be turned fully automatic with the addition of a $100.00 bump stock.

There is hope though about the future of the “Modern Sporting Rifles”; the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled AR-15’s and other assault weapons with large magazines are not protected by the Second Amendment and can be lawfully banned, finding that the AR-15 can be banned based on the Supreme Court’s Heller decision.

As a retired police officer and firearm instructor I can tell you it’s not the firearms that have changed its the people using them. I’m not a gun nut, guns are simply an inanimate tool I carried for 30 years which was no more or less dangerous than the patrol car I drove. Society has coddled these evil individuals and now many innocent victims are paying the price. Just wait until these crazies start weaponizing drones and they will.

SO thankful we as a nation are committed to keeping wording from nearly 250 years ago – that doesn’t apply to today. And such, we are so proud that we can be so invested in our weaponry, namely guns, that there is one for every man, woman, and child.
And now that we have dawned upon near daily massacres due to widespread weaponry, we seize the moment so that we can arm our teachers. Need not books, pencils, computers or other learning devices – we need more killing instruments.